


claiming to love me, you turned your back

by Averia



Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Memories, Multiverse, Nightwing #74, Ric Aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averia/pseuds/Averia
Summary: Dick's memories have been restored. Now it's business as usual. Right?
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 26
Kudos: 166





	claiming to love me, you turned your back

**Author's Note:**

> I'm mad at NW #74 (and truly the whole Amnesia arc) that's the fic. #DickDeservedBetterAgain2020
> 
> Also, universe-altering shenanigans because DC randomly decided to use the ASBAR costumes for the Flying Grayson’s instead of the blue one, like??

The different memories are warring for his attention. It's bad while he is awake. It's worse when he is asleep. He has seen his parents fall in so many ways, in blue costumes and golden-green, even in red. The occurrences begin to mix, blend into an unrecognizable mass of death, death, death. There is no rhyme or reason to how they fall, but the gruesomeness remains.

"We're all back together. Everything is good," Tim says as if he means it, optimistic in a way that doesn't quite seem... _real_.

Dick wants to ask and finds himself not afraid but unable. Every time he tries his jaw locks, his stomach tightens unpleasantly. _Where are they? Where is Damian? Where is Alfred? Why are you happy? Why wasn’t I there?_

"I watched over you, but you had to overcome this alone. Only you could beat this **_thing_** ," Bruce says, and he means it even though he can’t even say the word (just **_a_** thing), and Dick wants to trust him, did at that moment, too vulnerable, too weak to question him. He wants to say _thank you for believing in me_ , but his heart screams, _I needed you. I needed you, and you weren't there._

_You showed me how I was shot, I saw the blood, the flesh, the bones, and the image hasn't left my mind ever since. I nearly died, and then I came out wrong. I wasn't enough. My fear wasn't enough. My pain wasn't enough. For you._

All that matters are the scars on his body that betray who he is. His mind is nothing more but an inconvenience to the ones that wish to control him. Scarecrow. The Court. The Joker. _~~(His family.)~~_

Their influence lingers, and in the deep of night, Dick wishes he had given in, had just let go.

There is no-one around to tell him that it wouldn't have been the right decision.

Alfred is gone.

Wally is gone. 

Roy is gone.

He doesn't know where Damian is.

He doesn't know where Donna is.

He doesn't know where Bea went that day.

_I'm sorry,_ his mind whispers. _I'm sorry that I can't be Dick and Ric in one. I’m sorry._

Our son. Dick. 

Justice. 

Compassion. Love. 

Commitment. 

Effective. Centered.

Their words scrape at his mind and carve their way into his skin. That is what he is. It's what they tell him he is. What the crystal tells him he is. And Dick doesn't know if he believes it.

**He doesn't want to be what they tell him to be. He just wants to be himself.**

_You were the same decent man as before._

_You are the optimism I've always strived to have._

_You were the type of son a father prays for._

_Our perfect little boy._

**Perfect** , and still not enough. _(Something to strive for.)_

Barbara is wrong. He doesn't know exactly who he is. He knows he should, but he doesn’t. The all tell him what is, but he can't trust the crystal. It has lied before. _They_ have lied before. They didn't care. They didn't care enough, and yet, he wants to trust them and be there for them, offer himself like he is their hope, theirs to pick apart and put back together. 

What's another claw in his mind? Fingertips that press into his skin till he bruises, pulling him down a path he never wanted to step on.

They need him. They have always needed him, and he disappointed them. How could he? And…, _and how could they?_ How could they leave him alone? Leave him on the streets to be used by enemies that they knew about? How could they show him how a bullet in his head looks while he still felt it in his brain?

People are running around in his costume. People. Not a person. He doesn’t know them. One of them is already dead. (The blood will forever stick to his hands.) They burned one of his hideouts. No-one stopped them, and _he hates himself for that_.

"You should have cared about yourself," he whispers, curled together, the balls of his hands against his eyes. "How could you let them do that? How could you betray yourself like that?"

It's his own fault. Hot tears slide down his face. Everything he fought for was left in the dust. The thought closes his throat, and he wishes he could suffocate. He hates Ric. He hates his family. Hates their expectations, unreachable. Hates himself for letting everything slip away he tried so hard to keep.

(Where are his friends? Has Bruce declared him dead again?)

Dick whines even though he wants to scream. He failed himself, disappointed himself. _Betrayed himself._

"Dick?" a voice asks, deep and soft like he hasn't heard it in months, and he stares up with wide, wet eyes.

"Bruce?" he whimpers, a hitch in his breath, hands still raised and curled, half-covering his face.

"Dick, what are you-- Why are you crying?" Bruce asks, looking worried, bewildered. Strong hands curl around his smaller ones as Bruce kneels down in front of him, the cape sliding over the smooth cave ground like a living shadow. The blue gaze searches his face, near afraid, and Dick stares at their hands with blurring vision, eyebrows curled up helplessly. Blue covers his middle and pointer finger, but the image seems to glitch, wavers into green and light-blue and black.

A fresh wave of tears flows down his heated cheeks. 

This isn't his costume. This isn't his Bruce.

He is dreaming. Wretched, nonsensical memories cooking up something he craves for and will never have. (Again.)

"I," he stares at the Bat on Bruce's chest. The outline isn't golden. Bruce looks a tiny bit older; a few gray hairs pepper the black. There are light circles beneath his eyes, his cheeks are a tiny bit stubbly, his hair still flattened from the cowl. He is tired, and yet, he worries. "I."

A warm thumb brushes the tears away only to be wet by new ones, and Bruce's gaze softens as if he is something delicate to handle. Dick thought he would never see that love directed at him ever again.

"Whatever happened, it's going to be alright," Bruce murmurs against his forehead, and Dick sobs again, holds onto this Bruce his dreams conjured with all he has, and whines, high and near inhuman as he is hugged back, falling into the tight embrace. 

His Bruce didn't hug him back the day before he was shot, just stood between his arms as solid and cold as a marble pillar, hands never even reaching out for him.

_I'm not enough._ His mind whispers, and he must cry it into this Bruce's chest because the cowl slips over his shoulders, heavy and grounding in a way it hasn't felt for years.

"I'm here, chum. I've got you. You don't have to do this alone."

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel: [so, another took your place](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044158/chapters/66025399)


End file.
